kanbrain-0.3.3 is not a library.

kanbrain: the `kb` command line

Project memory for you and your coding agents. kb keeps tasks, notes and decisions as plain markdown files next to your code, tracks the time spent on each task by itself, and gives coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, ...) a small, cheap command line to read and update them. Agents keep the board current and stop to ask you when a choice is yours; you answer on the board. There's no database: you can read the files, grep them and commit them with git.

This crate installs kb. The kanban board that shows the same files live, kanbrain, isn't on crates.io (it's built on GPUI from Zed's repository): get it from the releases or with the installers.

Install

cargo install kanbrain

It needs Rust 1.88 or newer. Update it the same way, then refresh your projects' agent instructions with kb init --all.

Connect a project to its agents

cd my-project
kb init

This creates .brain/, the project's data folder (commit it to share the memory, or ignore it to keep it local), registers the project, and writes a short section into CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md telling the agents how to use kb. For Claude Code it also adds hooks that hand the agent kb context at the start of each session. kb deinit undoes it and keeps the data.

How an agent uses it

kb context                         # start of session: project card, active tasks, decisions, notes
kb search login                    # find the task (or `kb add "Fix login 500"`)
kb start 4                         # clock starts (an agent can run several at once)
kb comment 4 "token refresh race; fix next"
echo "Context…/Decision…/Consequences…" | kb add --decision --link 4 --body - "Retry refresh once"
kb done 4

The next session's context picks up where this one stopped. Output is kept small so it doesn't waste the agent's context: write commands reply with one line, like #4 Fix login 500 (doing) #auth.

Commands

command	what it does
`kb context`	summary for agents: project card, active tasks, recent done, decisions, notes
`kb add [--note\|--decision] [--tag T] [--link ID] [--body TEXT\|-] [--start] TITLE`	create a task (or note/decision)
`kb start\|park\|done\|todo ID`	move a task; `start` runs its clock (a person runs one task at a time; agents, several)
`kb comment ID TEXT`	add a timestamped comment (`-` reads from stdin)
`kb describe ID TEXT`	replace the description
`kb link ID OTHER…`	link entries to each other (`REPO#ID`: in another repository of the project)
`kb project [describe\|notes TEXT\|-]`	show or rewrite the project's description and this repository's role
`kb project rename\|repo\|move\|remove`	rename the project or this repository, move it to another project, or remove the project
`kb show ID`	one entry in full: status, time, description, comments, links, history
`kb search WORDS…`	find entries by words; `#tag` matches tags only
`kb list [doing\|todo\|parked\|done\|all] [notes] [decisions] [--tag T]`	print tasks as markdown
`kb status`	the running tasks and their clocks, for status bars
`kb report [hour\|day\|week\|month] [--group task\|tag] [--save]`	tracked time as markdown
`kb completions bash\|zsh\|fish`	tab completion of commands, ids, projects and tags

add, show, search, list, the moves and comment/describe/link accept --json. --project NAME runs a command on another registered project from any folder. Outside any project, entries go to the central folder (~/.local/share/kanbrain on Linux, or $KANBRAIN_DIR).

Documentation

For coding agents · Command line · Tasks, tags & search · Time tracking · Data format · FAQ

License

AGPL-3.0-only, with the additional terms in NOTICE: anything built on kanbrain that you distribute, or that others use over a network, must be shared under the same license with its source, keep the attribution "Based on kanbrain by singudotdev", and use another name and logo.

kanbrain 0.3.3